[Democrats are looking for a workaround after the Supreme Court
blocked President Joe Bidens student loan debt forgiveness plan.]
[[link removed]]

DEMOCRATS SHIFT GEARS TO STUDENT LOAN PLAN B  
[[link removed]]


 

Igor Bobic and Arthur Delaney
June 30, 2023
Huffington Post
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Democrats are looking for a workaround after the Supreme Court
blocked President Joe Biden's student loan debt forgiveness plan. _

Eliminate Student Debt, by j.stavrogin (CC BY 2.0)

 

WASHINGTON ― Democrats
[[link removed]] are vowing not
to give up on student loan debt relief after the Supreme
Court blocked President Joe Biden’s forgiveness plan on Friday
[[link removed]],
denying help to more than 40 million borrowers.

“This fight is not over,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren
[[link removed]] (D-Mass.) said
in a statement. “The President has more tools to cancel student debt
— and he must use them. More than 40 million hard working Americans
are waiting for the help that President Biden promised them, and they
expect this administration to throw everything they’ve got into the
fight until they make good on this commitment.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), another vocal advocate for
student loan debt cancellation, argued that the Biden administration
can move to forgive student loans by citing provisions of the Higher
Education Act, a 1965 law that established federal aid programs for
college costs.

“It is very important to note this SCOTUS ruling does NOT remove
Biden’s ability to pursue student loan forgiveness,” Ocasio
Cortez tweeted [[link removed]].
“The Biden Admin can use the HEA (Higher Ed Act) ― our position
from the start ― to continue loan forgiveness before payments
resume. They should do so ASAP.”

Biden announced on Friday that he would indeed seek to invoke that law
to provide student loan relief, calling it “legally sound,” but
adding that it will “take longer.”

Biden’s initial plan would have forgiven up to $20,000 in student
loan debt for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for other
borrowers who made less than $125,000 a year in 2020 or 2021. The
administration cited his authority to cancel loans under the 2003
HEROES Act, which allowed the president to waive student loan debt
terms during a national emergency. In this case, Biden cited the
COVID-19 national emergency, which he ended earlier this year.

But the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court disagreed,
writing that Biden only had the authority to make “modest
adjustments and additions to existing provisions” to the HEROES Act,
“not transform them.”

In dissent, liberal Justice Elana Kagan ripped the majority opinion
for exceeding “its proper, limited role in our Nation’s
governance.” She wrote that the law allowed the administration to
“waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” and
“replace the old provisions with new ‘terms and conditions.’”

The government has previously said that a pandemic-related payment
pause will end on Sept. 1, meaning payments will be due in October. As
for the forgiveness program, a notice on StudentAid.gov
[[link removed]] on Friday tells borrowers the U.S.
Department of Education is “reviewing the Court’s decision to
determine next steps.”

McKenzie Ball of Bozeman, Montana, said he would have had $14,000 in
student debt wiped out by the Biden plan. He doesn’t have much faith
that any Plan B schemes could have the same impact.

“I’m not going to expect the political process to work in my
favor,” Ball, 37, told HuffPost. “It would have been nice, but I
accept the fact that my name’s on the loan.”

Ball works as a sales coordinator for a company that makes outdoor
gear. He said he borrowed nearly $40,000 to pay for his degree in
political science and spent years in the nonprofit sector before he
switched careers to cover the rising costs of Bozeman
[[link removed]],
where he grew up and would like to be able to buy a house and maybe
start a family.

Ball said having to resume forking over around $260 per month will be
a significant setback.

“I’m driving a 2000 Subaru with 200,000 miles on it, it’s rusted
out, and I’m going to be putting off buying a new car,” Ball said.
“Homeownership is not something I really expect to have an
opportunity to experience anytime soon.”

Biden is expected to announce further actions his administration will
take to protect student loan borrowers on Friday.

“The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning,” Biden
said in a statement released by the White House. “They had no
problem with billions in pandemic-related loans to businesses –
including hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars
for their own businesses. And those loans were forgiven. But when it
came to providing relief to millions of hard-working Americans, they
did everything in their power to stop it.”

The Higher Education Act allows the secretary of education to waive
loans without specific requirements. It’s been used to cancel
student debt before, albeit in limited cases. Last year, the
Department of Education forgave
[[link removed]] $6
billion in loans for defrauded students. In 2019,
then-President Donald Trump
[[link removed]]’s
administration eliminated
[[link removed]] student
loan debt for 25,000 disabled veterans.

But relying on the HEA could face obstacles from the same Supreme
Court majority. In his 6-3 opinion on Friday, Chief Justice John
Roberts included a note
[[link removed]] about the
limits of relief in the Higher Education Act, which he said pertained
only to some public servants, borrowers who have died or become
disabled, borrowers who are bankrupt, and those who have been
defrauded.

The Education Department announced
[[link removed]] earlier
this month that its three-year moratorium on payments and interest on
student loans will end in October. The budget deal Biden signed into
law that lifted the debt ceiling included a provision, insisted upon
by Republicans, ending the pause.

Democrats said the coming expiration is even more reason for Biden to
continue the fight on student loan forgiveness.

“The Biden administration has remaining legal routes to provide
broad-based student debt cancellation,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement on Friday. “With the pause on
student loan payments set to expire in weeks, I call upon the
administration to do everything in its power to deliver for millions
of working- and middle-class Americans struggling with student loan
debt.”

_Igor Bobic is a senior HuffPost reporter who covers Congress, the
White House, and political campaigns. He can be reached at
[email protected] and is on Twitter @igorbobic._

_Arthur Delaney, senior reporter, started working for HuffPost in
2009. He covers politics and the economy. Previously he wrote for the
Washington City Paper, The Hill newspaper, Slate Magazine, and
ABCNews.com. His email is [email protected]._

_Don't sit on the sidelines of history. Join the HuffPost community
and support real news that puts people first. Join HuffPost.
[[link removed]]_

* Student Debt
[[link removed]]
* Supreme Court
[[link removed]]
* Joe Biden
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]